By Scott White
Woodford Sun Staff
Budget presentations took up nearly all of the time of the Woodford County Fiscal Court’s Budget Committee meeting, and then at its regular meeting on Tuesday, April 28.
The budget discussions include county departments and agencies in which the Fiscal Court either accepts their proposed budget as required by statute, like the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, or approves the budget because the county funds a portion of it, like the Woodford County Conservation District.
At the budget committee meeting, budgets were presented from the Versailles Police Department, the Extension, the Department of Emergency Services, the Safety Committee and the technology department.
The presentations will next be considered by the Fiscal Court, as well as County Judge-Executive James Kay, who will initiate the debate on the final budget when he presents his office’s budget to the Court on May 1.
Conservation District
As a follow-up to the last Fiscal Court meeting on April 14, the Conservation District provided answers and information to six “questions” posed by the Fiscal Court. Kay and Magistrate Liles Taylor thanked the Conservation District’s operations manager, Nat Colten, who Kay praised as a “great hire by the Board of Supervisors, and is doing a tremendous job.”
This seemed to turn down the temperature in the relationship between the Fiscal Court and Conservation District, which was exposed at the meeting of the Conservation District’s Board of Supervisors last Monday, April 20. In a series of emails obtained by the Sun under the Kentucky Open Records Act, it appeared the Fiscal Court and Conservation District were working together to resolve the issues from the April 14 meeting.
Magistrate Mary Ann Gill, in a phone call on Thursday, April 23, requested Fiscal Court Clerk Jordan Coyle place the Conservation District’s budget on the Fiscal Court’s April 28 Budget Committee meeting agenda. That was on the same day Coyle emails the information and agenda packet to the magistrates.
In response, Coyle said she would check with Kay and other Budget Committee members who are responsible for setting the agenda.
On Monday, April 27, Kay emailed the Conservation District’s board chair, Michael Duckworth, advising him of Gill’s request and that Kay was under the impression the Fiscal Court and the District were working together to get the April 14 questions from the Court answered, and advised Duckworth that he would let the District decide if it wanted to appear as an agenda item at the April 28 Budget Committee meeting.
Duckworth responded in an email saying: “(I)t looks like your 4 p.m. agenda is pretty tight, so we are fine with responses. I think we addressed the question from Alan George in an earlier email. We will not need to discuss at the meeting today at 4 p.m.”
Following up via email from Colten to Coyle that same morning, April 28, Colton told Coyle that he had been informed the Conservation District would not be attending the Budget Committee meeting or regular Fiscal Court meeting.
During the announcement part of last night’s agenda, which occurs at the end of the meeting, Gill thanked the Conservation District for answering the questions posed by the Fiscal Court at the last meeting.
Gill said “I’d like to thank the (district) who were here (at the earlier Budget Committee meeting) to answer the questions that were asked at our last meeting (April 14) and they didn’t get that opportunity. So, I am just going to summarize (their responses which had been provided to the court from Colten earlier that day) . . . .”
Gill went on to discuss each of the questions/requests for information, concluded saying “So, there was really nothing wrong (in how the district operated) and (I) just want to say their increase from last year is $18,713, and it all goes to farmers which benefits all of Woodford County . . . I thank the (Board of Supervisors of the district and its staff) for the work they do. They do great work. They are experienced. They are frugal. They have office staff turnover like lots of people do, but overall that is a well-run (agency) and a very vital (agency) in this county.”
Magistrate Darrell Varner followed up on the positive comments from Taylor and Gill, saying how valuable the Agricultural Resource Building is, which holds four different Ag-related agencies. “That building is used so much,” he said. “If you look at the calendar, you will see those rooms are full every night and on weekends, so it is a really good asset (for the county).”
Woodford Reserve
The Fiscal Court voted to hear the first reading of an ordinance that would approve the issuance of up to $90 million in Industrial Revenue Bonds (IRB) to generate funds for Castle & Key Distillery to use on improvements and additions to its plant. Per the bond information sheet, Castle and Key is seeking $61 million for the project from this total bond issue capacity.
The proposed bond ordinance will be further discussed and debated when it is called for a second reading at some future meeting.
Treasurer
Woodford County Treasurer Melody Traugott reported a balance in the money market account of $14,554,663.73.
Contracts
The Fiscal Court approved the following contracts: $317,458 for a new F550 ambulance with Atlantic Emergency Solutions and $7,257.09 for the Big Sink sidewalk project with AECOM.
Board Appointment
The Court confirmed Kay’s appointment of Versailles resident Jan Clark to the County Ethics Commission.